Author Archives: Louise Catherine Lawlor

Experiments

The Choir

A test to see the different formations of the inner cavity of the mouth and duplications of the full object. When you begin to add more faces it starts to create the effect of a choir, also by adding more faces the gender of each becomes more and more blurred and it will be interesting to test this when there are different faces involved. The notion of the removal of gender is akin to the cyborg theory and the manipulation of the voice, with things such as auto-tune, will again remove the clear boundaries of gender that we currently perceive.

The formation of the faces in either groups of three,  to create a chord, or groups of twelve, to create an octave. Or four groups of three as a combination of both. Then the different speakers can be set up to output a certain note and manipulate the voice as it is fed through it.

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Experiments

The Teeth (cont.)

Taking the idea of the internal cavity of the mouth being created entirely by a machine as a contrast to the organic origins of the external space of the mouth and face, I took this further by adding in all the elements of the internal anatomy. I modelled the tongue, tonsils, uvula, soft palate and connective tissue when the mouth is stretched open. As the shape of the inner cavity of the mouth and things such as the placement of the tongue affect the voice, it will be interesting to test this by changing different aspects for each variation.

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Altering the shape and placement of the tongue, this may change the way sound would resonate through the space:

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Experiments

The Teeth

As an extension to the previous experiment exploring the mouth, taking the external space and using Photoscan as an intervention device to take the human to a cyborg hybrid or organism (human) and machine (3D object), I decided to focus on the internal space of the mouth, teeth etc. This time however, instead of translating the human to object I began by creating the human mouth in a machinic space. I created a 3D model of the gums and teeth using Blender, sculpting the internal cavity to resemble that of ‘reality’.

This model was then added to the Photoscan cyborgic external mouth, creating an additivism of organism and machine that replicates biology without skin. The result feels quite uncomfortable, especially when the texture of the human is applied and the default grey of the teeth are in stark contrast.

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Experiments

The Mouth

Following on from my experiment in layering the voice using a loop pedal, the objectification of the voice in the isolation of paralinguistic elements then set in repetition over the top of each other, I explored the next vital component of this process. The mouth forms the connection between internal and external, of body and voice, and perhaps can be seen as a border between the two. I decided to take inspiration where I left off with Project 1, by translating the mouth into a 3D object using Agisoft Photoscan. This created an interesting comparison between the notion of borders of internal > external, body > voice, organism > machine. The potential became to either expose the border itself or expose the blurring of such, taking back to the notion of the cyborg and the idea that organism and machine are in conflict in terms of the spaces they exist. Here, however, these spaces are blurring with the use of machinic intervention to confront one with the other, the 3D process thus becomes the intervention and we are being confronted with the increasing ambiguity of the border between natural and artificial.

This process led me to the idea of using 3D prints of the mouth as an amplification device to a small speaker outputting the paralinguistic vocal sounds. Perhaps within this the “natural” outside of the mouth can be fused with an “artificial” 3D rendering of the inside cavity? Many of these can then be created based on the identity of the person who created the vocal sounds, together forming a collective, an ‘us’, or a form of cyborgic choir. Here highlighting the question, what counts as ‘us’? What would deem inclusion in this collectivity? As Donna Haraway posits, the collective is elusive if we only perceive it in the sense of identity, instead the need to view it from a sense of affinity, a coalition through affinity, becomes apparent.

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Mock-up of the mouth with the speaker placed behind:

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Removal of texture:

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Research

Reflections on A Cyborg Manifesto

Reflections on A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway

‘A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction.’ (Haraway, 2000, 291).

In her manifesto, Haraway posits that the cyborg results from a combination of organism and machine, in the conception of coded devices where we no longer talk of reproduction but rather a form of replication. The points at which organism and machine meet have resulted in a border war, at this point we need to take pleasure in the confusion of this boundary and a responsibility for its construction. The notion of organism and machine in conflict in terms of the spaces in which they exist can become blurred through the use of machinic intervention to confront one with the other, Haraway’s point here is very interesting and can be applied to my current thinking surrounding the border between the voice and machinic intervention to expose its fragility and confront sound with object. Haraway here takes this further to suggest the cyborg illustrates the possibility of ‘a world without gender… a world without genesis… a world without end.’ (Haraway, 2000, 292). Genesis is used here in the sense of origin, or the formation of something as the source, the beginning, the birth. In Haraway’s view the cyborg sets up both a world without beginning and without end, this is explored further in that the cyborg is not a separation from a previous state of unity, from the Mother and the wholeness of organism. In actual fact this previous state of wholeness is a myth, the cyborg skips this stage of unity and as such has no origin story and proposes instead the notion of a world without origin. Therefore suggesting that the process of birth, persistence and end I explored in Project 1 are irrelevant, they are instead reworked. The cyborg is seen as the illegitimate offspring of militarism and capitalism, but as such in being illegitimate they are unfaithful to their origins and origins become inessential. This notion links back to the idea of the voice once isolated and combined with machinic intervention, as an illegitimate offspring that is no longer faithful to the human mother/father. ‘But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential.’ (Haraway, 2000, 293).

‘Late twentieth-century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial, mind and body, self-developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions that used to apply to organisms and machines.’ (Haraway, 2000, 294).

Haraway sets out some interesting definitions for machine and human, machine is seen as fluid, light, invisible and ‘made of sunshine’ (Haraway, 2000, 294). Whereas the human is seen as opaque, material and heavy, in stark contrast to the machine and has a distinct feeling of obsolescence implied. So, ‘cyborgs are ether, quintessence’ (Haraway, 2000, 294), quintessence can be read in two ways either as prototype, epitome or ideal or as essence, ethos or substance. The notion of cyborg as prototype is particularly interesting, linking back to my work in Project 1 in the creation of a 3D printed object from the human effectively saw the confrontation of organism and machine to create a hybrid where the simulation of consciousness was firmly applied through the machinic. Haraway goes on to discuss the move from reproduction to replication, whereby ‘any objects or persons can be reasonably thought of in terms of disassembly and reassembly’ (Haraway, 2000, 301). This links to the idea of replication through 3D printing and the disassembly of the organic human reassembled through the machine and plastic to the cyborgic. This similar process can be applied to my current project with the voice; communication technologies are crucial tools for re-crafting our bodies to provide the ability for the voice to occupy different spaces in the reassembly of our bodies with machines. Here tool < > myth, instrument < > concept, systems of social relations < > anatomies of possible bodies are permeable boundaries that can mutually be a part of each other. However, Haraway goes on to state that a break down of communication processes causes the system itself to fail to recognise the difference between self and other, ‘a stressed system goes awry; its communication processes break down; it fails to recognise the difference between self and other.’ (Haraway, 2000, 303). From this we can see that the fragility of the voice and the intervention into it causes a break down and as such the voice can no longer recognise the self. If we are to continue the notion of replication, we must be aware that electronics fundamentally mediate a translation (ie mind > artificial intelligence), the use of electronics as part of communications blurs any boundary between organism and machine. This results in mind, body and tool being on intimate terms with the mediator, the tool of electronics thus intimately becomes a part of the cyborgic reassembly of the voice, creating a copy that no longer has an original. ‘Microelectronics is the technical basis of simulacra; that is, of copies without originals.’ (Haraway, 2000, 303). Ultimately Haraway states that in this hybrid of organism and machine, the body doesn’t have to be defined by skin (human) or otherwise defined by this outer layer of biological material. The holism of the organic base isn’t needed for the cyborg to possess intimate components; these variants or mutants can possess gender, sexuality, embodiment and skill without the need of the organic to provide wholeness.

‘Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin? From the seventeenth century till now, machines could be animated – given ghostly souls to make them speak or move or to account for their orderly development and mental capacities. Or organisms could be mechanised – reduced to body understood as resource of mind. These machine/ organism relationships are obsolete, unnecessary.’ (Haraway, 2000, 314).

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Experiments

Vocal Experimentation – Loop Pedal

Following on from my curation of vocal sounds I decided to experiment myself in layering vocal sounds using a loop pedal. I took the notion of the paralinguistic and began by layering one by one different sounds, pitches, speeds until the point at which the original sounds were taken over, distorted and ultimately intervened into. Intervention here became the loop pedal, creating the ability to build up sounds in a spontaneous composition that isn’t planned and only exists in that moment. The fragility of the voice is emphasised by the ability to become noise, a drone of compressed sounds all fighting for position. We hear by the end that very few of the original sounds can be differentiated, even initially those that are the most piercing. As it moves towards the crescendo, you begin to hear the places in which the sounds come together in agreement, harmonise and become rhythmic and also where they are in dissonance, where they clash and fight each other resulting in an uncomfortable listening experience.

The two sound clips both only use vocal sounds without words/language. Then the first video brings in the use of word as part of the layering process, seeing how these can be intervened into by the sounds which we make outside of language. The second video then explores the layering of one sound, building different pitches on top of each other to form a resonance that would be unachievable with a singular voice.

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Experiments

Paralinguistic Curation

I have begun the curation of vocal sounds from people based on the following categories:

Growl, Mhm (Hmm), Erm (hesitation), Snore, Grunt

Sigh, Yawn, Shhh, Gasp

Speed fast, Speed slow, Volume loud, Volume quiet, Pitch high, Pitch low

Monotone, Sing-song, Breathy, Whisper, Husky, Creaky, Mumble

Laugh, Cry, Cough

Tick, Click, Hiccups, Tutting

Inhale, Exhale

Message sent out:

Hello, my next masters project is on the voice and explorations into the sounds, intonation and objective effects that can be created by it. As such I’d be very grateful if you could take part in the project by recording your voice performing one of the following:

<list>

[The word or phrase can be anything you want, if possible could you record it in your own language and then in English (just to see the differences in translation).] Please could you repeat the sound five times, record it by any means you deem appropriate and then send the sound file to me.

Post production on the recording is entirely your choice as long as the origins of the sound are the human voice, so feel free to experiment. Any questions just let me know.

Thanks so much,

Lou

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Research

Kanye SNL Rant

Ever since it leaked I can’t seem to stop listening to the Kanye West SNL rant audio, soon it began creeping into my thoughts for my current project exploring the voice. After you’ve listened to this a few times it begins to morph into some form of aggressive spoken word poetry, changes in tone and volume crescendo into a listing of influential figures punctuated by declarations that we shouldn’t fuck with him. Listening to the voice on a muffled amateur recording gives a layer of noise that seems to add to the immediacy of the words, when we’re considering the voice that can be recorded on many different devices and is so often done so, for the everyday person, without any high quality production techniques. This feels real, but when it’s Kanye what even is real? Authenticity, intent, reality are all subjective when you’re experiencing the voice out of context and don’t know the space or even the structure in which it was delivered.

Let’s take a second to appreciate the poetic aggression:

Are they fucking crazy?
Bro!
By 50 percent
Stanley Kubrick
Apostle Paul
Picasso
Fucking Picasso
and Escobar
By 50 percent more influential then any other human being
Don’t fuck with me!
Don’t fuck with me!
Don’t fuck with me!
By 50 percent, dead or alive
By 50 percent for the next thousand years
Stanley Kubrick
Ye.

But let’s not forget, #prayforkanye.

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Research

Thoughts

As a culmination of some of the research I have done so far I have formulated some musings on a direction I could take my project in, taking into account notions of:

  • Intervention
  • Collectivity – the collective voice
  • Mediation of the voice – through online social channels
  • Compression 
  • Exception – the removal of the oppressor in order to exist authentically

I am hoping to collaborate with Jamila Faber, a writer and musician from the Netherlands, and utilise her knowledge of sound and also the voice as a tool within art. We have been throwing ideas back and forth in relation to my research:

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This has formulated ideas around a creation of a layering of voices/ different vocal experimentations and sounds that could form a base, then interventions into these could be staged in order to highlight the intrinsic fragility of the voice (seeing it as an object through a spatial/temporal interaction of intervention). Perhaps these interventions could be achieved through an interactive triggering of sounds to build up into a spontaneous composition. The performativity of the intervention is something that was thrown up when reading a Rhizome interview with V4ULT (a curatorial platform initiated by Anna Mikkola and Hanna Nilsson in 2013), their second exhibition (Episode 2) centred on the theme of intervention where those of another temporary in nature were inserted into the populated exhibition space. They stipulated these interventions could take any form and allowed them to see what type of interpretations emerge when two practices overlap, setting up layers, clashes and frictions in the creation of a dynamic exhibition format where art works and practices come together in agreement or dissonance.

Secretly recording people’s voices as they enter into the space could be fed back out and used in a spontaneous composition, this could also lead to the notion of unintentional triggering when people say a certain word, or walk past a certain point, an audio fragment is triggered. The project Spirit is a Bone by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin uses a similar notion of the unknown capturing of identity, they have utilised FaceControl 3-D which is used in facial recognition surveillance cameras to capture faces from different angles and then combines the images together to render a 3-D model that goes into a database and can be matched against other images to identify suspects in real time. Broomberg and Chanarin have re-purposed this software in the creation of portraits of German citizens, ‘each person was invited into a makeshift studio where the system—on loan from Vocord—was set up. It looked as clandestine as it sounds, with just four lenses embedded into the walls and wired to a computer. The subject merely had to walk into the room and the portrait was complete.’ The final portraits have a creepy effect that somewhat removes humanity, they are cold and present a clear severed link between the human and the portrait.

This idea also throws up the notion of the collective voice in the form of a collaborative composition, a choir of everyday voices that sculpts sound into object.

Attached to this is also my brief experiment to convert a .wav file into a 3D printed vinyl record, this is still something I would like to explore and push forward beyond its current limits but I’m not entirely sure at the minute if it could be incorporated with the above thought process.

Next to do:

  • Curation of voices – collect together voices as recorded through various formats and then mediated through various forms of social media/online tools (including Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, email, iMessage, Skype etc). 
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Research

Voices of Old People

Interesting example I remembered of uses of experiments with the voice in music, Simon and Garfunkel included the ‘song’ Voices of Old People on their album Bookends. This is a form of sound collage made up of tape recordings by Garfunkel at the United Home for Aged Hebrews and the California Home for the Aged at Reseda. The song effectively old people sharing memories, but features a departure from any form of music we would expect and provides an air of sentimentality that wouldn’t have been as effectively communicated any other way.

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